SPECIAL: Eleven years ago, Donald Trump appeared on the 2006 Grammy Awards, making a surprise appearance during a medley in which various celebrities took turns singing familiar TV theme songs. Trump, as himself (at the time, a New York real estate tycoon) and Megan Mullally, in character as the brazenly wealthy and comically clueless Karen from Will & Grace, sang the theme to Green Acres. That was the 1965-71 sitcom that started out as Beverly Hillbillies in reverse, with rich folks g

2017

Apr

TESTWORLD By David Bianculli

MINISERIES PREMIERE: The first season of HBO’s Westworld established that there were other amusement park “worlds” that were part of this troubled, part-android universe. To keep fan appetites whetted until the second season begins, HBO is presenting this limited-duration miniseries, set in an intense, isolated facility where visitors – the type who love to play videogames and computer chess, and compete against artificial intelligence – are placed into dehumanizing

2017

Apr

PUTIN ON THE RITZ By David Bianculli

SEASON FINALE: This long-running Russian propaganda series, broadcast often in almost unavoidable rotation on the RT state-controlled Russian television network, has finally been dubbed and imported for U.S. viewers. Americans finally can see what Russians have seen for years now: Their leader, Vladimir Putin, insisting on national television that he’s just a harmless and regular guy. Every year on this show, Putin moonlights, and shows off his “common man” connections, by taki

2017

Apr

COMIKAZE PILOTS By David Bianculli

SPECIAL: Comedy Central has made a lot of unsuccessful series pilots over the years – but never before has found a way to repurpose or amortize them. This new one-week special collects lots of unsold and unsuccessful series pilots from the Comedy Central archive, starring such currently hot comics as Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee, and presents them back-to-back in a one-hour time slot. The comic and pilot with the higher rating gets to move on to the semifinals; by the time the week is over

2017

Apr

THE RUSSIANS By David Bianculli

SERIES PREMIERE: You can’t blame FX for cashing in on its increasingly relevant period drama series The Americans, which features a pair of Russian secret agents working undercover as everyday Americans in Ronald Reagan’s Cold War 1980s. But rather than present a dramatic reversal, with American spies pretending to be everyday Soviets, FX is going the comic route. In this period sitcom set in the 1960s, Dave Thomas and Sally Kellerman play bumbling American secret agents tasked with

2017

Apr

PLANET EARTH III By David Bianculli

SNEAK PREVIEW: When the producers of the just-completed Planet Earth II were considering what to do next, the first thing they considered was to collectively commit to a third entry in this fabulous series about life on Earth. The original Planet Earth was televised in 2006, and the sequel premiered in the United Kingdom ten years later, in 2016. To try to drum up enthusiasm and backers for the project, one of the producers, using CGI special effects, generated a “teaser special” pur

2017

Mar

ODE TO ‘GRIMM’ By Monique Nazareth

“Foretold our fate; but, by the god’s decree, all heard, and none believed the prophecy.”...

2017

Mar

FIVE CAME BACK By David Bianculli

DOCUMENTARY MINISERIES PREMIERE: This three-part documentary series – co-produced by Netflix and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Productions, directed by Laurent Bouzereau and based on the nonfiction book by Mark Harris – is an excellent, superbly researched examination of a crucial but little-known chapter in American cinema history. It’s the wartime film history of Hollywood directors John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler, all of whom went to

2017

Mar

THE DISCOVERY By David Bianculli

MOVIE PREMIERE: Robert Redford, Rooney Mara, Jason Segel, and Jesse Plemons star in this challenging new film, which posits, and dramatizes, a thought-provoking hypothetical: What if proof were discovered of an actual afterlife? How would people respond? And, given that information, would they wait for their natural deaths to see for themselves? If you’re dying to know the answers to those questions, this is for you…

2017

Mar

GRIMM By David Bianculli

SERIES FINALE: For everyone, here’s some Grimm news – but for fans of this show, it’s some grim news, too. This is the final episode of this series. For a full appreciation, see Monique Nazareth's MNtv.

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